Kabarole district approves Shs 27.3bln budget for next financial year
Kabarole: Kabarole district council has approved a budget of Shs 27.3 billion for the next financial year 2023/2024 with education taking a lion’s share of Shs 9.5bln.
The education sector is followed by health with Shs 7.2bln and administration with Shs 4.8bln.
The budget was approved on Friday during the budget council meeting held at the district headquarters in Kitumba.
Other sector allocations include roads engineering with Shs 1.9bln, production and marketing Shs 1.5bln, water Shs720.1mln, statutory bodies Shs 485.7 million, natural resources Shs 412.4mln, finance Shs 281.7mln and community based services Shs 160.8mln.
Planning Sh153.4mln, trade Shs 97.6mln and internal audit with Shs 56.4mln.
According to the budget estimates Shs 20.2 bln is expected to come from conditional government transfers, Shs 4.9 bln from discretionary government transfers, Shs 949.7 from other transfers, Shs 480mln from external financing and Shs 804.1mln from locally raised revenue.
The Kabarole district LCV chairperson, Richard Rwabuhinga said the budget for the next financial year is very tight with a lot of deductions in various departments and sectors.
He however noted that they may get some additional resources in the third budget call circular and said in case additional resources are communicated, they will communicate to council at the earliest convenience.
“Areas which were affected by the budget cuts include production, primary education, gratuity and pension, councilors and LCs ex-gratia among others,” Rwabuhinga said.
Rwabuhinga further expressed concern over the central government’s habit of returning the districts’ unutilised funds to the Consolidated Fund when the financial year ends and then delays to return it for use.
“I would wish to appeal to the central government and particularly the Ministry of Finance to stop taking a way the districts’ money meant for capital projects. I would wish to echo the concerns of local governments in Uganda that we are being failed by elements at the centre,” he said.
The Minister of State for Local Government, Victoria Businge Rusoke appealed to local governments to adopt the Integrated Revenue Administration System [IRAS] to improve local revenue collection.
She said system has already helped some local governments in the country raise local revenue.
The IRAS is a web and mobile application platform that aids municipalities in collection of local revenue from registration, assessment, billing, payment, sensitisation of taxpayers and linking the citizens to municipalities.
Government is expected to run on the Shs 51.9 trillion budget in the next financial years that kicks off from July 1, 2023.
The theme for next year’s budget shall be full moniterisation of the Ugandan economy through commercial agriculture, expanding and broadening services, digital transformation and market access.
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